#109 Lou Reed, 'Transformer' (1972)

Previously #194

Loud Reed left the Velvet Underground in 1970. Disillusioned with New York, he went to London, where he signed with RCA. He released his debut album, which was a complete flop. With his second album, he decided to take a chance on a couple of producers, one of whom had never producer a record before, and the other that had only produced his own music and one other artist. The producers in question, Mick Ronson and David Bowie. Bowie was a massive fan of Reed, having been majorly influenced by the Velvet Underground. It was a full circle moment for both Reed and Bowie. Bowie and Ronson managed to take Reed’s ideas and shape them into an album full of commercially viable music.

Four out of the eleven songs on the record had been composed by Reed during his time with his former band. Reed, an artist who was always beyond his time, address issues such as transgenderism on what would become his signature song, ‘Walk On The Wild Side;’ “Holly came from Miami, F.L.A./Hitch-hiked her way across the U.S.A./Plucked her eyebrows on the way/Shaved her legs and then he was a she.” The song’s iconic bass line was used later on in A Tribe Called Quest’s ‘Can I Kick It?’ The other song on the record that would come to be a signature tune for Reed is ‘Perfect Day,’ a song that had a resurgence in the ‘90s thanks to its inclusion in the film, ‘Trainspotting.’ It also hit #1 in 1997 when it was released by the BBC as a charity single featuring a star studded lineup of singers, the likes of Bono, Bowie, Elton John, Tom Jones and many others. ‘Satellite Of Love’ could be a Bowie song, unsurprisingly. Other highlights include ‘Vicious,’ ‘Wagon Wheel’ and ‘Andy’s Chest.’

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